To be sure, there’s already a voluminous body of public evidence—from Trump and Musk’s own statements to court documents to media reporting on DOGE’s activities—contradicting the government’s claim that DOGE is an advisory entity.
To recap, consider what the government’s own administrative record establishes:
- On the afternoon of April 3, DOGE contacted the Justice Management Division and “instructed them to terminate” the Acacia Center’s contracts.
- Later that evening, a DOGE associate embedded at the Justice Management Division—reportedly as an information technology “advisor”—directed senior Justice Department officials to immediately “terminate” the Acacia Center’s contracts.
- When the senior officials were unable or unwilling to do so within an hour, the DOGE associate took matters into his own hands, soliciting a contract officer to send the termination notice.
- He apparently did so without the knowledge of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which administers the contracts.
- While the April 3 termination notice was rescinded the following day, a second notice was issued on April 10, again at the urging of the DOGE associate.
The litigation in the Amica case is ongoing, and it remains unclear how the newly-revealed information about DOGE’s role might affect the legal arguments and outcome in the case.
For now, however, the administrative record in Amica provides the best evidence yet that DOGE is not simply advising—it’s calling the shots.
URL: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/on-doge--directives--and-doj